Brad Paisley has been making quite the spectacle on Twitter over the last two days, claiming to be leaking bits and pieces of his upcoming album Moonshine In The Trunk against the will of his label Sony Music. Or so he says.

The frivolity started Saturday night (7-27) as Brad Paisely took to the social network site to post YouTube links to players that featured 2-second snippets of his new songs, all while supposedly stirring the ire of the “suits.”

“I’m going rogue.” Paisley said. “The label doesn’t know I’m doing this. Seriously. But I made a Moonshine Preview teaser. Don’t tell. Better listen to this while you can. I bet the label tries to pull it down. Clock’s ticking.”

Brad then posted links to the Youtube players, and later screen shots of supposed communications from Sony who was apparently trying to “shut him down” as he continued on his quest to release the teasers. “Hurry up and Listen. I’m going to dentention. Breakfast club!!! Here I come.”

Later Brad Paisely posted, “I really do love my record label. Especially for puttin’ up with my $h@t. But I love y’all even more. Ha! Priorities. Okay suits. Catch me if you can. Take 2: enjoy.”

And this continued with subsequent tweets as Brad Paisley complained that the YouTube players were getting yanked by Sony, and posted further players to circumvent them.

Then similar hijinks happened again on Sunday night. After Brad claimed he was restricted from posting the YouTube previews by Sony, Paisley supposedly recruited Ludacris—rapper and co-judge of ABC’s new reality singing competition Rising Star—to post the players for him. “I promised I wouldn’t post the link myself. Me. Myself. I. I’d love to post another link but they’re watching me like a hawk but I bet they’re not watching Ludacris.”

All of this was happening with ABC’s broadcast of Rising Star bisecting Sunday’s Twitter event. “OK great show everybody! Now back to the rebellion!” Brad said afterwards, along with more screen shots of supposed emails and texts from management.

Normally an artist rebelling against their label, even if that artist or their music doesn’t particularly fit the style of what Saving Country Music would condone, would receive nothing but cheering and steadfast support here. And it isn’t as if the Brad Paisley/Sony Music relationship is without problems. Brad has ongoing court dealings with Sony over the amount of royalties he’s been paid, but even in his “rebellious” tweets Brad said, “I really do love my record label,” and there’s never seemed to be a strain in the working relationship between Brad and Sony.

This Brad Paisley leaking episode is not him acting out against his label, it is pure marketing. Maybe Sony did not know that Brad was planning to leak the 2-second snippets, maybe they did. But either way, the entire episode was planned out, choreographed, and carefully executed by a marketing team assembled by the Brad Paisley camp. Whether Sony was in on the ruse really is inconsequential.

Normally when an artist rebels against their label, there’s a means to an end. All we have here is two seconds snippets of songs, and a remix of his already-released single “River Bank” with Colt Ford. There’s no freedom gained by Paisley, or any particular value for the consumer by posting two-second bits of songs. This is all to create a stir in the public, and by attempting to portray Brad Paisley’s actions as spontaneous, let alone rebellious, it is an insult to the intelligence of the country music fan. The lines in the tweets and texts are clearly canned, and it’s no surprise Brad was in cahoots with DJ Bobby Bones to release the “River Bank” remix. Bobby Bones is another character who is apt to fabricated attention grabs full of canned jargon an ambiguous gripes about “suits” shutting him down.

There are artists in country music and elsewhere that truly labor under unfair, unethical, and sometimes illegal conditions from labels, sometimes with tongue-tying clauses in their contracts that don’t even allow the artists the ability to speak on the matters publicly. Many artists were, and are resigned to this fate under Curb Records, and have to fight protracted and costly legal battles to gain the ability to release their own music, including Tim McGraw, Hank Williams III, and others, sometimes having to wait half a decade between releases as their careers lose momentum. To use this unfortunate reality of country music for many artists as marketing is in poor taste, and Paisley’s own potential short changing by his label for royalties should have made this even more top-of-mind.

Once again Brad Paisley is resorting to headline-stealing histrionics to try to remain at the top of the country music mindset in a move that undermines his natural talents, and his standing as one of mainstream country music’s good guys.

The thing that is worth getting upset over is that while it is tongue-in-cheek, and we see it as such, Brad’s fans don’t. If you look at his Facebook, his fans are rallying to his support….eating up every post as truth while there are other artists in real fights with their labels that these fans would ignore.

This may look tongue and cheek to us because we’re used to seeing this stuff coming from real artists in real disputes with their record labels, but the public has bought this hook, line, and sinker, and it’s insulting to people to try and perpetuate a ruse like this when you know the majority of people are going to think it’s real, especially for going on three days.

Paisley has proved several times that he is just as guilty as the rest of the music row douchers of following the flavour of the week to try be the popular douche of the week. I still remember early on in his career he was a representative of traditional country and did manage to stay close to his roots, however he is now showing his true colours as a Bro-Country doucher.This is just him being a fucktard, acting childish because he isn’t in the limelight.

Is that what this has all been about? I’d been seeing these pop up on my newsfeed on Facebook but I honestly couldn’t tell who he was arguing with or what about. It all felt/looked pretty forced and I didn’t pay it much mine.

I hope Brad get his stuff together. His albums have fallen off from being automatic buys for me, and gimmicks like this really don’t help the cause.

Good point, I was probably being too generous there. It’s funny though when I go on iTunes and actually check out some of the deeper album cuts off of his more recent albums they don’t sound bad at all.
I’m OCD and try to listen to every album I own all the way through at least once a year and I guess it’s just the idea of having to sit through most of his recent phoned in singles when listening to the last few albums that’s off putting.

I’m not even angry about this little publicity stunt. The “River Bank” remix with Colt Ford however prompted me to write a rant that I’m releasing tomorrow. This is just all part of the problem Paisley is facing with his popularity. He’s becoming irrelevant, he knows this and is reacting in the worst way possible. It’s pretty similar to Jerrod Niemann’s entire new album. Both are experiencing a career crisis and it’s kind of painful to watch (and hear).

You hit the nail on the head partner! Whats even sadder than BP trying to fit in to the BRO-Genre is that he would have an even bigger following if he just stuck to playing Trad-Country like he used to, instead of the younger crowd that could care less about BP himself, but the image that he is trying to portray.

I really do love brad, “whiskey lullaby” was one of the most moving songs I still have heard to this day, but the last few years his music has totally fallen off the map for me. Him and George Jones were very good friends, I wonder what George would think of the shit that’s been put out lately.

Stories from major periodicals either alluding or outright stating that the feud between Brad Paisley & Sony is real. In fact I could not find one story from another outlet that is saying outright this is a hoax or publicity stunt. I would say it is close to 80% of the public that believes this is true.

“Brad Paisley gave fans a bit of a saga on Twitter yesterday, as the singer apparently defied the will of his record company by posting clips from his new album well in advance of its August 26 release date.”

“Singer Brad Paisley has come under fire from executives at his record label after leaking a preview of the songs from his new album….Earlier this year, Paisley filed a $10 million lawsuit against bosses at the label for breach of contract and unpaid royalties.’

I said it earlier, but how are 2 second clips “previews” in any way, shape, or form?
Seems the “legit” sites are guilty of regurgitation to elicit clicks. Have any of them reached out for comment as “news” orgs should?
Meh.

There are local stations here in Delaware that have contests involving guessing the song based on two-three second clips.. intended to be a challenge, of course. Hardly useful in terms of previewing.

One of those contests won me some free pizza, actually. Thanks, Semisonic’s “Closing Time!” Those overtones on the dead note strums in the chorus gave ya away! Unfortunately all Brad is giving away here is his P.R. methods..

Awww come on. I just can’t hate on Brad. He seems like such nice guy. For the most part his music isn’t thought provoking (we’ll forget that unfortunate LL Cool J thing). It’s sort of Jeff Foxworthy-ish with a better lyrics. He does have some deeper stuff but I think he is sort of a singing comedian. I follow him on Twitter and never once thought the “spat” was real. He is always pranking and messing around on there. The fans that are raging against his label are just looking for their outrage of the moment. They were probably up in arms about McGraw getting molested last week.

I thought it was funny in the beginning and played along commenting a couple times and RT. Then I posted a comment to him that I hope it wasn’t a publicity stunt. Once I saw it was still going on today I was convinced it is and when I read this article it made me 99.9% positive. I guess many of them do things for publicity, and this is fitting for his personality. But I no longer believe for a second that his label wasn’t in on it from the start.

Ok I just went back through twitter after searching his name and you’re right, people are defending him. I just never took it that way myself while he was posting the emails and such. It just seemed like one of his normal stunts like Blake Shelton fake quoting famous people to vote for his Voice team. I mean, yeah they looked like real tweets, but I never actually believed that President Obama was telling me to vote for Danielle Bradbury. Either way, people are talking about his new album so I guess he got the publicity he wanted.

I still think brad Paisley is Country and those crossover stuff is made up by some idiotic scientist that made up this crossover $#!+ but other than that this whole story sounds like a hoax because I see a lot of singers post a preview of their up coming songs and albums on all types of websites like twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. all the time but I don’t see a record label get hyped up about it

Whenever I see these things occur, my mind always first goes to the fact that it’s a publicity stunt. And since Paisley’s last two singles failed to chart much (despite being two of the better tracks off of “Wheelhouse,”) he’s probably just trying to gain that attention back by playing the part of standing up to his label bosses.

As for a remix of his recent single featuring Colt Ford: well, it just goes along with what I said in my own recent post about the remix of Jake Owen’s “Beachin'” song – at least it’s only bad songs in the first place getting the remix treatment with the few good ones in the mainstream being left alone.

I would agree with that, so perhaps I should have worded what I said better. Because the songs you mentioned weren’t remixed with rap artists. They were essentially club or dance remixes primarily for club or dance purposes, and not with the intention of mass airplay as is the current state of remixed songs.

This reeks of gimmickry. It seems to me that Paisley is firmly entrenched in the establishment, and I doubt seriously that he would do anything that would actually jeopardize his career in that regard.

If Mr. Paisley wants to be a rebel, why does he feel the need to following industry fads with his music? Nothing could be more rebellious right now that recording traditional country songs. The “suits” wouldn’t like that either.

I do think this is tongue-in-cheek, and maybe its because I like the guy, and outside of his last and probably upcoming albums, his stuff isn’t bad and a decent percent of the time is good. My one thing i do have an issue with in this article though is,

“Once again Brad Paisley is resorting to headline-stealing histrionics to try to remain at the top of the country music mindset in a move that undermines his natural talents, and his standing as one of mainstream country music”™s good guys.”

Even though I never liked his music, I used to stick up for Brad paisley because he was a local guy and his music wasn’t as awful and some of the other garbage out there. I was wrong. He’s a piece of shit.

Dear Stir the Pot. This post really has no point but to share a uneducated opinion for your own notoriety. Marketing scheme or not his tweets have been enjoyed. They are peppered with BP wit and welcomed by all his fans. I think we are neglecting to remember Brad Paisley is well into his second Decade of music. I’ve been a fan for the majority. Which qualifies me to add your idea about him being on his way out is silly.I would like to thank you for providing a name the we can laugh at 10 yrs from now as we are hanging out in the front row of a BP concert thinking it doesn’t get any better then this.

Dear Sarah Anders
Whether he is in his second decade of music or not is irrelevant to the fact that what he did was obviously a publicity stunt. He wasn’t “rebelling” against his label in any way, shape, or form with this.
And just because they are “welcomed by his fans” who would probably welcome anything he does is, again, irrelevant to the point this post made.
I say this as someone who has been a fan of a lot, if not most, of Paisley’s work. But Trigger called out BS when he saw it.
Get over it.
Sincerely,
Cobra

“This post really has no point but to share a uneducated opinion for your own notoriety.”

When every other major country music outlet is reporting the fictitious “feud” between Brad Paisley to be true, it falls to someone to report it straight. If that somehow makes me “uneducated”, the the 1st Amendment truly has no meaning. This story has gone from a stupid ruse that Brad Paisley has played on his fans and the media, to the very seat of idiocracy where the lone voice trying to tell the true story is the one being ridiculed. Beam me up.

The majority of these comments are laughable as well as ridiculous. Most fans follow and listen to country music for fun and entertainment. Regardless of rather the tweets were pre-planned or not, all of this was highly entertaining for Brad’s fans. Isn’t that the whole point of being an artist – TO ENTERTAIN!

Gimme’ a break – like you’re breaking the story that this was a hoax. In this world today, it is welcomed to have a little comic relief in our lives.

Brad is a genuine and humble person. I guarantee that his intent was not to deceive the public.

Brad will be around as long as he chooses because he is one of the best Entertainers out there. If you disagree, I bet you have never attended one of his concerts!

I’m pretty sure you just made Trigger’s point here. A “true journalist” will look beyond the face value of a Twitter feed in an attempt to find the real story. A well-trained hack takes everything at face value and runs with it.

No – my point is in my opinion – any story from twitter is Tabloid Journalism. You can’t take a conversation from twitter and present it as true jounalism. It has to be taken just as entertainment. Of course the magazines are going to sensationalize the story because that’s how they sell – once again – Entertainment Publications.

I understand your point too, but I don’t think Brad should have been personally attacked. How would doing this take away his standing as a good guy? He’s marketing an album. He will continue to be a philanthropist despite his “rebellion” against Sony – I promise.

Come on trigger! I always read your news, opinions reviews. I usually agree with you but this time you totally missed the point! it’s so clear that he was joking and he’s not seriously rebelling against Sony. If anybody believes he’s rebelling then he’s stupid. but if you don’t understand he’s joking then you’re out of track too. You really disappointed me this time trigger! and now I’m waiting for the album review! because ‘moonshine in the trunk’, “high life”, ‘cover girl’, ‘gone green’ and ‘me and Jesus’ are pure country. and Brad is ACTUALLY saving country music with this album. I’m sure you’ll recognise you were wrong!

Whether I believe he’s joking or not, the majority of his fans believe him, and all you have to do is peruse the fan comments surrounding these “leaks” to see that is true. Now here maybe a couple of weeks removed, people are beginning to wisen up in greater numbers, but when I posted this, I would say 80% of his fans truly believed there was a feud between Brad and his label. In fact I had not seen ANYONE say they didn’t believe it until I posted this article.

[…] only country music outlet that has pointedÂ out that this is nothing but a dumb marketing tactic is Trigger at Saving Country Music. Every other country outlet has eaten this up to be legit and real. I better stop now before I get […]